I suspect that W7 will be the last, or next to last, MS attempt at
a real OS. Nobody is buying Vista, and Linux is available for all
knowledgeable users, not to mention a few others. In addition
Microsoft is finally bending under the strain, as evidenced by
their recently announced layoff of 5000. They are rumoured to have
94000 employees, of which a large proportion must be software
writers. I can't imagine a system less likely to produce anything
good.

What kind of dope are you smoking??? Can I get some?

To say that "nobody" is buying Vista is absurd. Virtually every PC
sold has Vista on it. Some percentage of them may also have an XP
license, but that brings in even more cash for MS.

Then on top of that, you seem to be blaming the current economic
crisis on Vista. You are aware that virtually ***every*** company in
the US and much of the world is suffering from reduced sales and is
facing layoffs and other serious cutbacks, right?

They are also rumoured to have 21e9 dollars to work with. My
guesstimate is that they should be able to piddle away about 3 to
4e9 per year, giving them an expected lifetime of 7 years.

I don't really care who likes Vista and who doesn't, but you are so
distorting the facts.

People aren't buying Vista. They are buying computers, which
happen to have Vista mounted on them for nonsensical reasons. I
may be exagerrating slightly, but I suspect that we are seeing the
beginning of the end for MS. Just look at their 5000 layoff of
94000 - that firm never needed all those employees in the first
place.